Chuck Grammercy wasn't, mercifully, deployed to the Arklay Mountains facility with the Umbrella Security Services unit that got decimated by Black Sword. If Chuck had friends, he'd consider it a loss. But, he merely considers it an opportunity for more responsibility, the only thing that can satiate a man that's fighting a war for the sake of purpose.

Grammercy had been given his marching orders the next day, to 'the blacktop', a facility in Raccoon meant for data and signals intelligence by the corporation's military arm. After spending days talking to soldiers and spies, listening to interviews and learning from recordings, he had pointed out a number of qualifiers with the other specialists, and it had been filed into a report to be passed to corporate headquarters. Chuck's observation was the poor combat response time of everyone involve when dealing with viral infections. He theorized that it was due to fear of pestilent contagions, and that Umbrella's BOWs were unfamiliar in terms of evolution. An advantage to Umbrella, and a disadvantage to their own soldiers. A doctor had given him the prognosis, after a few hours of roundtable discussion, that the unique combination of infection, visible morbid disorder, and physical aggression, decreased focus in humans nearby. Chuck drew up a proposal, had it approved within two hours by a small steering council, and was sent to Dr. Richard Stadler.

Chuck Grammercy, dressed in his black fatigues, walks through the hallways of Richard's building, holding a matte black plastic folder with photocopied paper inside. The dour, hateful man's sad eyes bother the scientists here, a visual revulsion in some of the non-scientific workers. The executives, however, love his forced smile when he sees them.

It was a late night in a corporate research office, to the point where the building was mostly empty. The normal people that liked to 'work late' had gotten out at 6:30 PM, and a normally bustling attitude became just a bit depressing when most of the lights were off, the darkness from outside the windows mixed with the sounds of a small city quieting down from a not-so-exciting Thursday evening reminding everyone still up (a few midnight oil burning managers and the janitorial crews that couldn't be seen during the day) that the warm lights of a suburban home and the comforting conversation and presence of family would be preferable than another half hour of sitting in this carpeted part-time masuleoum.

And that's what Rick thought. He promised his wife that he wouldn't be home much later, that they'd be able to sit down and have a meal, and see his son off to bed (an oppurtunity that he feared Arthur was swiftly growing out of). He'd been spending far too many days these last two weeks after hours in the office, pouring over his teams data on his and related projects after being asked by HQ; being driven and having pride in his work could only take him so far, and it was only the murmurs from his higher-ups that some very important people were looking at his dedication that kept him here.

But he was almost done for tonight. Just a little bit more information to log away, that he was told would be arriving shortly, and the booted steps brought some anticipation and light confusion as he heard them. Confusion increased as he noticed the man walking to the door of his office, but he didn't let it show much. Instead, he stood up, white lab coat billowing over the dress shirt and tie it was over, and walked around his desk, extending his hand. "Ahh! Mister... Grammercy?"

"That's right," comes a low reply, Grammercy's head tipped forward as he makes an appraising estimate of Dr. Richard Stadler. He read the file before he got here. National Guard service, and a busy bee in the pharmaceuticals division as a team leader. Wife, son, friends, everything. Stadler was living the fantasy life that Grammercy had wanted for the first two decades of his life, before he found purpose as a scoundrel with a knife in someone's back. "Just Grammercy, if you please."

He extends his hand and shakes Richard's, his grip soft and encompassing, as if Chuck was testing water in a pool, with a smooth shake up and down, taking the initiative by taking of advantage of polite virtue from the other man. He slips his hand away and turns his head to the side, walking to take a seat across from the desk and crossing his ankle over his right knee, placing his folder on his high left knee and leaving his hand over it. "I'm sorry you had to stay so late tonight, we've had quite a busy week, and we need it less busy, like you. Many hands makes light labor, and executives can't lift worth sh**," he says with a New York tightness, head tilted to the left. He lifts the folder and places it on Stadler's desk, beside him. "I'm Umbrella Security Services, and I'm an intelligence liaison, so you can trust me to report your work honestly. It's my standard practice to bump up my evaluations a notch on the personality mark, I don't know people that well."

He offers Stadler a grin, accidentally predatory, like each of his grins are.

Stadler's own grip was firm enough to be standard, but it doesn't seem like he was interested in a clash of dominant wills. He gives a tight smile to the man, two firm pumps, before his hand minuately geastures to the chair that Chuck moves to, a smooth exchange of pleasentries in a social dance that Stadler was grateful didn't require a lot of steps this late at night. "Grammercy, then. I thank you for dropping this off pretty late, and I promise I won't keep you." He says, reclining slightly in the faux-leather chair as he moves to take the folder when it's placed on his desk. "And I can totally understand. Entire company seems like it's having late nights here or there. Not entirely sure /why/, but that's for the executives to decide." He says, before leaning forward conpiratorially. "I hear from the grape vine it's a new over the counter pain killer; brand new NSAID, so it's bound to be hyped."

A bit of a grin alights on his face, but he speaks with psuedo-seriousness. "Oh, watch it there. You'll never get anywhere in corporate work unless you kiss a little bit of ass. Mix it with comptenece, and it goes far." He says, before opening the folder and looking down. Hopefully quickly enough to keep from showing how that smile was a bit unnerving to him. "You USS people are admittedly a bit off my radar. A bit off everyone's radar, really..." He trails off, frowning slightly. "This is some data. Mortality calculations, viral vector methodology... I don't beleive I've seen these perdiction models before. This data come from Detrick?"

"We're actually looking for a product for the military, on this one," Grammercy explains, completely deadpan in his half-truth. "I can't go into company secrets - we like to keep our sardines in plenty of cans, in case a can goes bad - but from what I'm aware of, it's something like that." His grin closes and he looks down at the file in Stadler's hands. "I can't tell you where it's from, but I'm a good liar, so who knows." He's sensed Stadler's fear, his eyes moving upwards to watch Richard's eyes on the folder, for a brief moment, before politely looking across the office and setting his hand on the corner of Stadler's desk. He lifts a picture of Stadler's wife and kids, giving an approving nod, before setting it down.

"Umbrella keeps us around because we have tight lips. Otherwise, I'd be hacking it in Namibia working for De Beers, or out in the East Indies on a security mission for the Red Cross. Something like that." He strokes his chin slowly, as watching Stadler read. "What we're looking for is a stimulant. I need something compatible with those conditions, that can enhance focus over a short term period. Remember Desert Storm, and that hit on the quartermaster's base from the SCUD strike? The possibility of biological agents being used on our soldiers is more and more likely. Uncle Sam sees that hit as a fiasco, tragedy, disaster, whatever, but our enemies? They see it as a case study."

Grammercy uncrosses his legs, signalling the shift to Stadler's court. "So, Doc. What we need you to do is come up with a likely set of parameters for a chemical stimulant to sustain typical combat focus when under those effects. That's our worst case scenario, that file."

Rick frowns for a moment at the talk of company secrets, as he flips through the folder, document after document. "Well, given the information, I'm not suprised that you're looking for something for the defense department. I'm afraid I'm a microbiologist, not an pathologist, but there are some similarities in them. The more information we have can help, but I know about compartmentalization." His expression shows he's not someone who likes it this time, but he's not about to ask questions that are going to get him in hot water. Maybe some discreet inquiries in the next few months, if things don't get busy. He had to assume whoever was running the IRB had alredy gone through with it.

"Far be it for me to ask you to lie." He says, his eyes flickering to the right, observing Grammercy with a touch of concern as he observes a picture of his children. Maybe something a bit light hearted. "The woman in that photograph'll kill me if I'm gone for much longer. Or worse, sue me. Doesn't matter that we're married, even. She is /good/." He says, a smile with a bit of whimsy belaying the joking statement with some truth at his core.

The smile on his face remains fixed, a forced chuckle at the talk of some... less than savory actions. So this was a professional mercenary. He supposed that the USS had to get them from somewhere... he just thought it was mostly military. A look back down to the folder, as he continues to scan forward. "Wasn't at that base, myself. I was pushing papers furthur in Saudi Arabia when that happened. But I know the case, and I know stimulants. I can gather that sort of information for you." Flip, flip, flip.

"I can see the information here... there's a few solutions we might look at. Amphetimine is the common one, but we'd have to mix it with some others; if they're looking for something to keep people going. Packets of glucose, maybe..." He says, before giving a tiny shake of his head.

The folder is tossed into an open drawer... the type that clucks with an electronic lock when the drawer snaps shut. "We should have a deriviative that we can send forward in a few weeks. It'll be rough, but if you can expediate FDA field trials based on our previous studies, esspecially with military expedients, it'll give us something to work with."

"You know what the Scandinavians say about Heaven, Doc?" Grammercy says, after a long moment of being quiet, having listened to Stadler. He rises from the chair with a press from his knees. "Heaven is being one with your soulmate, two people as one angel." He turns about and walks to the door, placing a hand on it and looking outside, to the empty hellway. "That's a child."

He turns about, explaining. "When you have economic stability, and a woman, and you mix your genes to have a human that resembles both of you, your empathy to each other turns into a syncretic reaction. That's where true love is from. Love at first sight is a myth, that's just manipulation. Unless you have a kid. Always the kid first, Doctor Stadler. It's nothing mystical or spiritual or magical, even though it is all of those combined in your eye." A soft, sallow smile comes over his face. "Go see your wife and kid. Thanks for the help, Doc. You're going to save a lot of people."

He steps out the door without waiting for any further comment, his crepe-soled commando boots quietly moving down the hallway.

Stadler gives Grammercy a look. There's a bit of a confused smile at the first statements, but his face does fall into more of a non-expression as he continues, peering through the man with his glasses. "Well.. I don't beleice I can disagree with your general sentiments. A scientist, after all, looks for the observable and not the metaphysical. Given what I've observed, I might disagree with your assessment. I love my wife, and would love her with or without my son. My son just brings it to higher hieghts, is all. Thank you, Grammercy. I hope we cross pathes again in the future." He says, before moving to sit back down.

He allows himself a few moments for contemplation at his desk. He had been a bit... rough there, a bit rude, and he really shouldn't have. He didn't /disagree/ with those assesments, just... he couldn't put his finger on it. That was something of a dangerous man. Maybe not with a gun, but anyone who could see the full picture could be dangerous. Maybe it just rubbed him the wrong way.

He brings his hand to his face. Lord, he was staying here too late. Annoyance at that, /that/ was the big point, probably, and he reacted badly because he hadn't given his family the best time, lately. Wouldn't be long before he was out of the Guard, though, and then that vacation. It would work. He gives himself a small smile, and snaps up his attache case, heading for the door. And starting with a good family dinner.